by Anna Schmidt
Chapter Thirteen
Levi woke before sunrise, surprising Hans and the cook in the kitchen. He had just spent his last night on the train—another restless night.
“Breakfast?” the cook asked, already taking down a skillet and reaching for a bowl of eggs.
“Just coffee now,” Levi replied. “I’m just going to walk the lot.”
Hans nodded as the cook handed Levi a mug of black coffee. It was a long-standing tradition that on the morning after the last show of a tour, Levi would walk through the now deserted big top and sideshow tents. He would sit in the top row of seats staring down at the center ring, replaying the season’s lineup of acts and already thinking about changes he would make for the coming season.
“Shall I come along and take notes?” Hans asked.
“Not today. Thanks.” He saluted them with his coffee mug and swung down off the rear platform to the dusty ground below.
The truth was that Levi needed time to think—about the future of the show, but also about Hannah’s future. Not that he had any say in that, of course, and yet somehow her future seemed improbably tied to his own.
Impossible.
She would never leave her faith for him and that’s what he would be asking of her. The very idea that she could marry a circus owner and travel around the country with a bunch of acrobats and clowns and not be shunned by her Amish community was ludicrous. And if he loved her—and that was still an undetermined quantity in his mind—would he ask such a thing? Wouldn’t the greater love be to let her go? Take her son and return home to Florida where she might find an Amish widower or bachelor waiting to marry her?
After all, she’d already made her decision. The note she’d written—the one he’d crumpled into a wad and then smoothed out and now carried with him—could not have been more clear. He’d avoided any contact or conversation with her since receiving that note. Maybe now was the time to respond.
He reversed his path and headed for the payroll car. He would take out the cash Hannah and the others would need for the train back to Florida, put that in an envelope for Gunther with a note. Then he would write a note to Pleasant thanking her for her service in the costume shop. And finally a note to Hannah—a businesslike note, similar to the one he wrote to Pleasant that would leave no doubt that they had come to the end of their relationship.
So engrossed was he in his plan that he was inside the car and opening the safe before he saw Hannah slumped over her desk surrounded by piles of papers. His first thought was that she had come in to work and been overcome by the aftereffects of her head injury.
But when he knelt next to her and gently touched her shoulder, she sighed, turned her face to the other cheek and slept on. Her breathing was normal and she certainly did not look as if she were in any distress.
Levi stood up and looked around trying to decide his next move. What had the woman been thinking to drag all of this out on the day they were scheduled to leave? Everything was out of order. Neat stacks sorted by vendor rather than his preferred system of filing by date covered not only the top of her desk, but also Chester’s. This would take hours to set to rights.
And yet in his heart, he knew that Hannah had to have had her reasons. He studied the arrangement of files, trying to find some sense in what she had done. And slowly he began to grasp what Hannah’s digging had uncovered.
Someone he knew and trusted was stealing from him—had been stealing from him for at least a year if these documents were correct. And the first name that came to mind was his old friend and business manager’s. Only Jake had full access to whatever cash reserves they kept in the safe. Only Jake could sign checks in Levi’s absence.
Not Jake, he thought. Please.
And that was the closest Levi had come to truly praying since the day his parents had been crushed in the tornado.
He picked up the stack of invoices from Danvers Dry Goods. He had traded with Travis Danvers and his wife, Ginny, for years. He’d come to Travis’s funeral and made it clear to Chester that whenever the circus came to town, all possible supplies that could be bought from Ginny should be. Yet mixed in with the Danvers invoices were others from a vendor he didn’t know. He studied an invoice for that other dry goods store dated three days earlier.
“Hannah, wake up.”
The urgency in his voice jolted her upright. “What’s happened? Oh, Levi, I can explain.”
“No time,” he said. “You need to get this stuff back in the files as quickly as possible. Don’t worry about getting it right, just get it put away before Jake comes in. I have to go into town.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I hope I don’t either—I hope I’m dead wrong about this but…” He spotted the rumpled invoice she’d been lying on and picked it up. He compared it to the one in his hand. “I’ll be back,” he said tersely. “Do not mention this to anyone—not your family, not Lily and certainly not Jake, do you understand?”
She looked at him with those huge blue eyes of hers and he saw that her lip was trembling. So he retraced his steps and pulled her into his arms. “It’s all right,” he crooned. “You did nothing wrong, Hannah. In fact, you might have done me a huge favor. Now please get this stuff put away. I’ll explain later, all right?”
She nodded and he kissed her forehead before letting her go. “If anyone asks, tell them I had to go into town—nothing more.”
Again, she nodded and he was relieved to see that before he was out the door, she was already starting to gather the piles of papers and put them back into the open file drawers.
Hannah’s head throbbed but she suspected it was not due to the bump she’d gotten reacting to Pleasant’s announcement that she might stay in Wisconsin. No, nothing was making any sense at all right now. Clearly, Levi had seen something in the papers she’d spent hours sorting through that she had missed and he had instantly known what it meant.
He did not seem upset with her. In fact, he’d shown her a kind of tenderness that had tested her will to stand firm behind the note she had sent him. Any kindness from him made her question whether or not there might be any possibility that she and he could…
“Hannah?”
She had not heard Jake come in. “Good morning,” she said brightly, even as she scanned the room for any documents she might have missed.
“You work late and come in early. I’m going to have to talk to Levi about giving you a raise.” He tossed his hat across the narrow train car and it caught the brass hat rack and stayed. “Have you seen the boss?”
“He said something about going into town.” Her breath quickened. She did not like lying but she would have to watch every word if she were to avoid that particular sin now.
To her relief, Jake grinned. “Figured as much. Levi has his traditions—last town on the tour is always special to him—a place where he’s connected with some of the townsfolk over the years. He always goes downtown to thank them and say goodbye.”
Outside they could hear the normal cadence of tents being dismantled while animals and wagons were loaded onto railway cars. The scent of bacon and sausage and strong black coffee wafted in through the open window and Hannah’s stomach growled.
“I think I’ll go get some breakfast,” she said, thankful for any excuse to get away from Jake and the payroll car. “Can I bring you anything?”
Jake rubbed his stomach. “Nope. Already ate. You go on. Looks like you’ve got everything in order here, and I imagine you’ve got other things on your mind right now.”
Hannah tried hard not to show surprise. “No. What things?”
“Your son—you’ll be seeing him by supper time, Hannah,” Jake said.
And suddenly, everything but the thought of reuniting with Caleb flew from Hannah’s mind. She smiled at Jake. “That’s right. It’s always seemed as if it were so far in the future—weeks and then days away but now…”
“It’s here. Today’s the day.”
Hannah could have hugged the man for setting her mind
to rights, bringing her focus back to what was really important here. Caleb was all that mattered from this moment forward. “Yes,” she said and she laughed. “Today is indeed the day.” And when she entered the dining tent she was humming to herself.
“You’re in a good mood,” Pleasant observed, scowling up at her from her place at one of the long tables.
“Today we see Caleb,” Hannah replied happily. She completely missed the unusually quiet reception she was receiving, not only from her sister-in-law but from Lily as well.
“I have to pack,” Lily muttered, picking up her dishes and leaving just as a waiter brought Hannah a plate filled with scrambled eggs, link sausages and fried potatoes.
“Milk?” he asked, holding up a pitcher from a nearby stand and Hannah nodded as she scooted onto the bench across from Pleasant.
“I’m famished,” Hannah said. “Surely that means I’m on the mend.” She had assumed that Pleasant’s sour mood had to do with the guilt she refused to relinquish for having caused Hannah’s head injury.
Pleasant worked her lips into a disapproving pout. “I suppose staying out all night doing who knows what with who knows whom can lead a person to an appetite,” she said primly, refusing to look at Hannah directly.
Hannah put down her fork. “I was working,” she said, but could not help but glance around to see if anyone else might have heard Pleasant’s statement.
This time Pleasant pinned her with a steely cold stare. “Do not add lying to your shame, Hannah,” she ordered through clenched teeth. “I awoke after midnight and came to bring you a glass of water and see if you needed any of the headache powders. Your bed was empty and it remained so.”
Hannah struggled with her sister-in-law’s accusation and with the unspoken promise she had given Levi not to talk about what she’d been doing and had obviously discovered. “I was working,” she repeated. “And I was alone.”
“Oh, really. Then Lily must have been mistaken when she saw Levi rush out of the payroll car just after dawn and then saw you through the window.”
“It’s not what you think—either of you,” Hannah said, and tried to concentrate on her breakfast, her appetite gone. She tried a sip of her milk. “Who else is talking about this?”
Hannah knew how quickly news spread in the traveling community. Most of the time she found it charming the way each of them seemed to care so much about everyone else, but there had been times when the gossip had been vicious—and untrue.
“I haven’t spoken to Father if that’s what you’re worried about. As for Lily, I couldn’t say. She did try and make excuses for both of you but then Lily has a soft spot when it comes to Levi—and to you.”
Hannah wrestled with her options and decided that truth had always been her guiding principle. “Pleasant, you know me and I am telling you that I was working and that yes, Levi came to the office this morning. But it is business—all of it. I don’t fully understand it and Levi has asked that I not mention anything to anyone—a promise I have just broken in talking to you. But I would rather break a promise to him than have you believe something that simply is not true.”
She watched as Pleasant’s expression softened from condemnation to confusion. “But what could you possibly…how much filing could there be that…”
Hannah reached across the table and took her sister-in-law’s hand. “I saw something a few days ago that raised a question in my mind. I thought perhaps I might have made a mistake and I wanted to be sure that everything was in order before turning the files over to Ida again. That’s why I went there last night.”
“And did you find what you were looking for?” Pleasant was leaning closer now, her eyes bright with interest and curiosity.
Oh, I found so much more, Hannah thought. “I’m not certain, but whatever has to do with that is now in Levi’s hands. All I plan to concentrate on for the rest of this day is what to say to Caleb when I see him. I am going to need your strength for that, Pleasant, and Gunther’s as well, if we are to be successful in reuniting our family.”
Pleasant picked at the fried potatoes on Hannah’s plate. “How do you think the reunion will go? I mean, how do you expect Caleb to react to seeing you—and us—again?”
“I don’t know. I have written him every day and have had only one short note back. The one I showed you.”
Pleasant nodded. “The wire. ‘I am fine. I miss you. And Auntie. And Gramps,’” she said in a singsong voice. “That one.”
“Not exactly what I had hoped for and I suspect Ida was behind it being sent at all. Oh, Pleasant, what if he refuses to come home?”
“Father will make him.”
“And then what? He’ll run away again and this time things may not turn out so well.” Her lighthearted mood of just moments earlier had completely disappeared. She was exhausted and confused and very, very afraid for what the day might bring.
Levi waited for Ginny Danvers to finish ringing up a sale for a customer and see her out.
“Well, Levi Harmon,” she said when she spotted him. She came forward wiping her hands on her apron before offering him a businesslike handshake. “To what do I owe this honor?”
Levi grinned sheepishly. When Ginny’s husband had been alive, Levi had made a habit of stopping by the store whenever he was in the area and spending an hour or so catching up. “It’s been a while,” he said.
Ginny nodded. “How about a cup of coffee? Black, right?”
“You wouldn’t happen to have any of those ginger cookies back there, would you?”
Ginny laughed and minutes later the two of them were leaning across the counter, drinking coffee and nibbling ginger cookies while Ginny told him about her kids and grandkids. “You still not married?”
“Haven’t found the right girl,” he said, giving her the stock answer he’d always used. Oh, but you have, he thought.
“Clock’s ticking,” Ginny said with a jerk of her head toward the old grandfather clock that had stood in the corner of the store for as long as Levi could remember. “But you didn’t come in here to look at pictures of my family, and you didn’t come to talk about your love life.” She refilled his cup. “What’s going on?”
“It’s nothing, really. I was wondering if you might have copies of the bills you submitted for say the past couple of years?”
Ginny lifted one eyebrow. “Sure.”
“Could I see them?”
She went through a curtain where he could hear the slide of a metal file drawer opening and a moment later closing. Just then the front doorbell jangled as two customers entered the store.
“Here,” Ginny said, sliding the file folder marked with his name across the counter. “Good morning, folks. How can I be of help?”
While Ginny served her customers, Levi studied the invoices. Three years earlier there had been a bill for one hundred dollars marked “paid in cash.” It matched an invoice that he’d picked up from the stacks on Hannah’s desk, except on his copy the amount paid was for four hundred dollars. By the time Ginny had come back to the counter to ring up her sales, he’d found three similar discrepancies.
Could Chester have pulled this off? Levi studied the changed figures closely. The four was smudged but he knew Jake’s handwriting as well as he knew his own, and this wasn’t his. Could they be in this thing together?
“You can take that file along if you like,” she said. “I’ve got a duplicate.”
“Thanks,” Levi replied as he gathered the contents into the file and tipped his hat to the two customers. “Oh, Ginny, do you know of a dry goods business in the area called ‘General Dry Goods’?”
“Never heard of ’em,” Ginny replied. “Don’t be such a stranger next time, okay?”
Outside the dry goods store, Levi stood for a long moment on the sidewalk trying to decide his next move. Down the block he saw a stone building that he knew held the town hall and the police department. There was enough Amish still in Levi that he hated the idea of involving outside law enforc
ement. He’d always prided himself on being able to manage his own security and business without having to rely on outsiders.
But someone was stealing from him—had been stealing from him for some time. And what that person had failed to understand was that stealing from Levi meant stealing from his hard-working performers and crew, as well. Fury welled up in Levi’s chest until he thought he would choke. He had given every employee his trust and his loyalty, but one of them had betrayed him.
There could be only two suspects, he told the police chief. Chester was responsible for making all purchases and submitting the bills, but it was Jake who was responsible for writing the check or issuing the cash to pay those bills.
Please let there be some other explanation, Levi prayed, even as he watched the police chief fill out the warrant necessary to arrest his oldest and dearest friend.
Chapter Fourteen
As the train approached Milwaukee, Hannah and Pleasant decided to spend some time in the club car. It was a gathering place for the cast and more often than not, Fred could be found there strumming his ukulele while others read or talked quietly in small groups. Hannah liked the countryside she was seeing. Rolling fields, freshly plowed and planted, flashed by the wide windows like the patches of a quilt. The day was sunny and fruit trees were in peak blossom. It was late May but spring was just reaching its peak in this part of the country.
She imagined Caleb helping with chores on a farm like those they passed. Pristine, white clapboard farmhouses accented by bright red barns and tall silos and neatly fenced yards. Please let him have found joy in this life, she prayed, squeezing her eyes closed and clenching her fingers together.
She felt the train slow and opened her eyes. In the distance, she could see the blue waters of Lake Michigan as they approached the city. As they reached the station, she was aware that the general buzz of conversation had grown more animated. Everyone seemed intrigued as a man in a dark suit and derby hat boarded the train. He entered their car and walked the length of it, his hands behind his back as he studied each of them.